"Thirty perhaps," he decided, confused.

"Thirty?" Her voice was stricken. Swiftly she turned to her mirror and examined her face minutely. "You're blind, you idiot!" she snapped, still staring at herself in the glass. "That's not the face of a woman of thirty. Twenty-three - twenty-five at the most."

"Whatever you say," he agreed.

"Twenty-three," she stated firmly. "Not a single day over twentythree."

"Of course," he said mildly.

"Would you believe that I'm nearly sixty?" she demanded, her eyes suddenly flint-hard.

"No," Garion denied. "I couldn't believe that - not sixty."

"What a charming boy you are, Belgarion," she breathed at him, her glance melting. Her fingers returned to his face, touching, stroking, caressing. Slowly, beneath the pale skin of her naked shoulder and throat, curious patches of color began to appear, a faint mottling of green and purple that seemed to shift and pulsate, growing first quite visible and then fading. Her lips parted again, and her breathing grew faster. The mottling spread down her torso beneath her transparent gown, the colors seeming to writhe beneath her skin.

Maas crept nearer, his dead eyes suddenly coming awake with a strange adoration. The vivid pattern of his own scaly skin so nearly matched the colors that began to emerge upon the body of the Serpent Queen that when he draped a caressing coil across one of her shoulders it became impossible to say exactly where lay the boundary between the snake and the woman.

Had Garion not been in a half stupor, he would have recoiled from the queen. Her colorless eyes and mottled skin seemed reptilian, and her openly lustful expression spoke of some dreadful hunger. Yet there was a curious attraction about her. Helplessly he felt drawn by her blatant sensuality.

"Come closer, my Belgarion," she ordered softly. "I'm not going to hurt you." Her eyes gloated over her possession of him.

Not far from the dais, Sadi the eunuch cleared his throat. "Divine Queen," he announced, "the emissary of Taur Urgas requests a word with you."

"Of Ctuchik, you mean," Salmissra said, looking faintly annoyed. Then a thought seemed to cross her mind, and she smiled maliciously. The mottling of her skin faded. "Bring the Grolim in," she instructed Sadi.

Sadi bowed and withdrew to return a moment later with a scar-faced man in the garb of a Murgo.

"Give welcome to the emissary of Taur Urgas," the eunuch chanted. "Welcome," the chorus replied.

"Carefully now, "the dry voice in his mind said to Garion. "That's the one we saw at the harbor. "

Garion looked more carefully at the Murgo and realized that it was true.

"Hail, Eternal Salmissra," the Grolim said perfunctorily, bowing first to the queen and then to the statue behind her. "Taur Urgas, King of Cthol Murgos, sends greetings to the Spirit of Issa and to his handmaiden."

"And are there no greetings from Ctuchik, High Priest of the Grolims?" she asked, her eyes bright.